Today is the day I turn 26 years old. For those who don’t know me yet, let me tell you a little bit about myself.

Who am I?

I am a full-time software engineer with a strong passion for web technology. I started OMNINOGGIN as a personal blog in 2007 in an effort to share my knowledge in the general field of software engineering. I wasn’t getting many readers by 2008, so I finally decided to niche-ify this blog into a blog that mainly talks about WordPress and a few other web development topics.

Writing more documentation and troubleshooting guides for your own plugin helps save you a lot of time spent on support.

The bad

Developing WordPress plugins for free will never make you enough money to compensate for your time spent, but it does get you more traffic.

Supporting a popular WordPress plugin is exhausting!

Do you enjoy my plugins and content?

I didn’t want to do this, but I just had to ask since it’s my birthday.

I spend a lot of time writing plugins/articles and I make them available for free. If they have helped you in anyway, or if you are using them for commercial purposes, then I would love it if you can support me by any of the followinig methods:

Of course this is not mandatory, but it would make a really great birthday gift!

What’s next?

I will continue to support and make updates to my current plugins, but I don’t see myself releasing any more plugins unless I think they will be as revolutionary as WP Greet Box and WP Minify. I will also be launching a support forum for my plugins to encourage community discussion/support rather than just 1-on-1 support in comment forms. With plugin support taking less time, I hopefully can focus on more WordPress articles and tutorials for you all!

This will be the most personal post I’ve ever written on this blog so far.

As you may know from my about page, I am a full-time software engineer working in a startup company. To my surprise, some of my close colleagues were laid off today. I shouldn’t have been that surprised given the current economic conditions, but it is still shocking to see some of my close friends leave without being able to shake their hands.

I am deeply sorry to see my colleagues laid off (we’ve had some great times), but I am not worried for them. They are among the best at what they do and I am confident that they would be able to find a new job in no time.

As for me, I am thankful that I wasn’t one of the ones chosen, but I can’t be relieved yet.

What did I learn from this?

Continuing the office pranks theme, I want to post another prank done by my girlfriend’s sister who works for Disney corporate as an Information Architect. I’ve seen this prank before, but I have never seen it being done by anybody I know. Kudos Annie!

In the previous post, I found out that it takes 150W to power my personal computer which I always leave on the entire day. I felt bad that I am not contributing to the “Go Green & Save the planet” cause. I actually use my person computer for a variety of things throughout the day but there was definitely a way to optimize the usage. Here are tasks that require my computer to be on all the time:

File Server (mainly used for backups)

Torrents

PVR System

Personal FTP Server (mainly used for syncing settings with my work computer)

MyCast Orb Sharing

I immediately saw that I can give up MyCast Orb Sharing, since I haven’t used it for months. Read on…

I recently purchased an APC BACK-UPS XS 1500VA LCD for $120 to prepare for California rolling blackouts/brownouts. I’m not sure if this is going to be worth it yet since I still cannot supply backup internet access in case of power outage. So if the power goes out, omninoggin.com along with a few other sites will still be forced offline. The great news though is that all of my precious hardwares are completely protected from over/under power issues. Here are some interesting facts I found out while installing this battery backup unit:Read on…

Have you ever seen one of these bottles selling in Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s? Do you ever wonder what it is and why the heck each bottle cost $4? A few months ago, I decided to find out what it is myself and forked out $4 for a raspberry flavored one. Once I opened the cap, the liquid started fizzing and foaming (naturally carbonated). I took a sip and it tasted nothing like what I was expecting. The drink was quite sour and had an odd after taste to it. I didn’t like it at all, but I figured that I should finish it and make it worth $4. About fifteen minutes later, I was in for a surprise. Read on…

“Rockbox is an open source firmware for mp3 players, written from scratch. It runs on a wide range of players…”– rockbox.org

The Apple iPod line has always been the bottom of my sh*t list. Don’t get me wrong, the iPod is stylish and the music quality is great. The only beef I have against the iPod is its music management. Almost everybody I know (including my non-geeky-girlfriend) hates how you have to use iTunes to get music onto the iPod. Here is the beginning of an endless list of iTunes woes:

iTunes is DRM compliant

iTunes is a slow P.O.S. software.

iTunes thinks you don’t know how to organize your own music, so it sticks your music into your iPod the way it thinks it ought to be organized.

iTunes will automatically delete songs from your iPod if it cannot find them in your library (image if you’ve moved a few of your music folders and did not update your library)

…you may add your own woes in the comments…

Notice that I did not mention “iTunes cannot be bypassed” in the list because, I have finally found a way that lets you do exactly that, bypass iTunes! Read on…

I would like to admit to the public that I was a smoker for 2 long years. As a blogger & coder, I was very vulnerable because I often hit writer’s/coder’s block. Now that I am an experienced ex-smoker, I would like to tell the world that smoking is not a choice or a habit. It’s an addiction. Nobody smokes their first cigarette thinking that they will continue to smoke for the rest of their life. I remember smoking my first cigarette because I wanted to be cool in front of some people. I thought that there was no way one cigarette would get me addicted. I then thought that two would not get me addicted. Then three, four, five… slowly but surely, I became a 5 sticks per day smoker. The nicotine trap is so subtle that if you are not always carefully paying attention to it, then you would continue to burn your life away. Read on…